Former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell died of complications from Covid-19 despite being fully vaccinated, his family said in a statement on his Facebook.
Mr Powell was born to Jamaican immigrants in 1937 and joined the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) while a student at City College of New York, according to the State Department’s website. He became one of the most decorated military officials and served as National Security Adviser to President Ronald Reagan, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for President George H W Bush and as Secretary of State for George W Bush.
Mr Powell was the first black person to hold all three titles.
“We have lost a remarkable and loving husband, father, grandfather and a great American,” his family said in a statement.
Mr Powell gained prominence during his tenure as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the first Persian Gulf War. For much of the 1990s and 2000s, he was one of the most prominent black members of the Republican Party but ultimately passed on running for president despite calls to do so.
As secretary of state during George W Bush’s administration, Mr Powell falsely testified before the United Nations’ Security Council that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, which was the main argument for the United States invading the nation to depose Saddam Hussein.
Mr Powell would later express regret and call it a “blot” on his record, according to The New York Times.
“I’m the one who presented it on behalf of the United States to the world,” he told ABC News’s Barbara Walters in 2005. “It was painful. It’s painful now.” Powell frequently disagreed with then-Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who died earlier this year.
Former president George W Bush commemorated Mr Powell in a statement Monday morning.
“He was a great public servant starting with his time as a soldier during Vietnam,” Mr Bush said. “He was highly respected at home and abroad. And most important, Colin was a family man and a friend.”
Despite being a Republican, in 2008 and 2012, he would cross party lines to endorse Barack Obama and voted for fellow former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Last year, Mr Powell spoke at the Democratic National Convention to endorse Joe Biden for president.
After former president Donald Trump incited a riot at the US Capitol, Mr Powell told CNN he no longer considered himself a Republican.
Source: Independent.co.uk